The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1887-09-01
WHITE SLAVES IN MASSACHUSETTS,.
How Ignorant Foreigners arc Captured,
Sold and Starved,
(From the New York Heralu.j


(From the New York Heral,,.j
Up in Massachusetts,, in the confines
of the beautiful Connecticut Valley and
on the slopes of the green hills that
shelter it, many farms of fifty, sixty or
one hundred acres each arc now being
worked by strange people-uncouth
immigrants, ignorant of the English
tongue and strange to Yankee ways.
They arc Poles, Hungarians, Magyars,
Danes and Swedes, with whose ignorance
the farmers put up because they are
cheap, strong and capable of doing hard
and steady work on little food of the
coarsest quality and used to living in the
most squalid quarters.
Some run away, leaving their scauty
baggage, oil they brought from Europe.
Some are wiso enough to stick out the
year, learn all they can and make their
own terms then. Some don't know what
they can do and go on stolidly and sui
lenly "grinding i'll the prison houses"
Herald reporter heard some of them
last week in tho Connecticut Valley, and
set out to investigate the stories, to
learn how the immigrants fresh from
Castle Garden get SO speedily into Mas
sachusetts, two hundred miles away, and
saw New York get these men under such
iron clad contracts. lie found that the
fine old city Of Northampton, Mass,
where philanthropy and education walk
hand in hand under the giant elm trees,
was the place where the largest jobber
in contract immigration farm labor
known to Castle Garden had his "ot1ice,"
a so-called intelligence office.
He ia Charles ~ Parsons q Manila
street farmer, large, stout man, with
light brown hair and beard, and an over
shrewd, even foxy, face of New Eng
land type. He went into the business
seven or eight years ago, at tho time of
the great floods in Hungary, when SO
many men left that desolato region for
this country.
But the authorities of the Garden be-
camo distrustful Of his methods and
work, and for two years they have re-
fused to have anything TO do with him
OF to allow him within the Garden. lie
has in consequence Of late secured his
immigrants in "Little Castle Garden"
at No. 80 Greenwich street, Fitzpatrick
intelligence Office.
Fitzpatrick secures his customers by
force, one might say. His henchmen,
lazy, tOnguoy immigrants who would
rather live by their unscrupulous wits
than by labor, hang around the Battery
as tho newly arrived immigrants stroll
out Of Castle Garden. These new corners
are too impatient after their forced con-
finement at sea to wait a day or two till
the Labor Bureau finds them work.
They fall ready prey to these runners,
who volubly claim to come from tho
same province or even the same village,
and overflow with the milk OF human
Kindness as they steer them H.raightway
to Greenwich street and land them deX-
terously ly in tho dismal looking intell-
gence Office.
Out comes the contract-it is filed
out; the hapless immigrant half dazed
'touches the pen" or makes his mark,
and he, with his family, if he has one, is
sold outright to this jobbcr in human
labor, to be transferred to the Massachu-
setts farms.
This is the Ii Dor contract they sign:
New YORK, 198-.
In consideration of the employment
furnished us by Charles Il. Parsons, of
Northampton, Mass, not over six hours
ride distant, we agree to work for him,
or where he places us under this con-
tract, for-months, at S., less OK
pcnscs, $, payment to be made at
end Of time, excepting what we need for
necessarics. Understanding further,
bagge to be- holden for all money ad-
Vanced, and if we fail to fulfill this con-
tract we do not expect our wages. Tho
said employer also agrees, if we do well,
at the expiration of the time to give us
Signed,